trenton

@gambler I largely agree with what you said. It's possible that my dating experience will be different from what these influencers are depicting. Once I clarify my values and hold myself to them, I will use them to help pick potential partners. I have a good idea of what they are already. One thing I'm not sure about is the criteria that I have to find a woman who was raised properly. If I applied that standard to myself, then women shouldn't date me even though it wasn't my fault that mother was a drug addict who my father statutorialy raped before fleeing the state to avoid paying child support. Is there a fairer standard that I could use or should I insist on this one even though I myself fail to meet that standard? Do people just have permanent emotionally problems because terrible childhoods like these? I originally thought the person you built yourself into despite your trauma was also fair and that is a standard I can pass. It potentially means that I might end up with a woman with unresolved trauma leading to conflicts that aren't my fault until the relationship falls apart. That sounds like who i would end up with given fair standards that I can pass.

My mental and emotional state has changed significantly. I had a major breakthrough when working on past trauma. I managed to stop compulsive analysis and hypervigilance. I used to have an intense guard monitoring every thought and scrutinizing myself. I have been operating under these trauma responses for about 20 years, but now I feel a deep sense of peace. I have been trying to heal myself for a long time. I ended up being put on a lot of different medications that had bad side effects. I turned to personal development hoping that I could use education, emotional mastery, and spirituality to improve my mental and emotional state. I tried many different things, but it was never enough. That is until I started using ai to help analyze myself. This allowed me to recognize various trauma responses so I could begin to become more peaceful. I found the ai more helpful than my actual therapists. It was key to identifying my mental challenges while remaining objective and non judgemental. I now have discovered peace. I am beginning to sleep normally rather than being hypervigilant at night. A significant change is that I moved away from my sister and mom who were causing me extreme anxiety to the point that doctors put me on anti psychotic medication even though the relationship itself created the present fear. I just want to live my life without the fear of them hurting me. I hope I can get weaned off the unnecessary medication. In the past when I tried spirituality, I ended up using it to rarionalize my trauma responses. I just did more of the same thing to my own detriment. I think now that my mind is in a better state, maybe I can begin to properly meditate without the hypervigilance constantly watching every thought with extreme scrutiny. I want to make sure I meditate correctly if I try it again. It really sucks that trauma victims turn to spirituality to reduce suffering only for their trauma to prevent proper practice. What is my awareness supposed to be like when meditating? How can I tell if I'm becoming more conscious or not? I want to be careful to make sure I don't just intensely focus on myself causing me to feel pressure in my body. I can't say I know what self reflection is anymore. Before it involved analyzing myself and searching for insights that would lead to inner peace and hopefully self improvement. I am now peaceful, so I'm not sure what's next. I want to use this peaceful state to discover what brings me joy in life. I want to live life without obligation to prove myself through forcing myself to do things I don't like for the sake of justifying my existence. There were several values I imposed on myself for proving self worth in my effort to love myself. This included intelligence and truth. My relationship with truth was flawed because it was rooted in trauma which created a burning attachment to things like certainty and being right. I wonder if I could try the life purpose course again from this new state of mind. My mind was a war zone for a very long time. Maybe I can now begin to discover myself. My mind is very quiet and empty and it is pleasant. I did a lot of Journaling before and I reviewed some of my old notes to see what I could find from this new lens. This led to further insight and peace. What comes next after inner peace? Am I supposed to let go of the ego entirely next? That might be the next step after healing. What are your thoughts on how to meditate and how to self reflect from this new state?

I made sure to block these channels now. I don't know how YouTube knew I couldn't resist clicking on those videos. The main reason I avoid dating is because of deep insecurity around sexual attraction. I might make a separate thread discussing this issue. I notice I am experiencing a lot of lust on a day to day basis. @gambler I think you describe why this resonates with me well. Gender and dating dynamics have changed significantly due to various factors including social media. This stuff around dynamics that favor women resonates a lot, but I believe this to be a slippery slope if I go too far down that path. I don't want to develop resentment. This is why I made the thread about my concerns. Is there a way to objectively describe dating and gender dynamics which gives the full picture rather than being skewed toward one gender?

For me it was the forgiveness exercise on Leo's channel. After Leo pressed for answers because of my investment in issues like these he suggested that I was carrying unbearable guilt and shame for what happened and thus started spinning stories about why incest is okay. I then did the forgiveness exercise several times. I was once again trying to love myself which felt impossible all my life. After a ton of crying I came to a realization. I could never forgive myself for what happened because I wasn't the only one traumatized. My younger sister was also a victim and likely carrying the same weight I had been carrying. Forgiveness and healing was no longer about just me, because I needed to make amendments with others. I mentioned this in my original thread about incest. I ended up stopping the forgiveness exercise and visiting my mom and sister to talk to them about this. Before I could let myself heal, I needed to make sure they could heal. Once I started telling my sister about what happened when I was six, she told me she didn't remember because she was only four at the time. I then started to see myself as more worthy of forgiveness because the situation did not carry the same weight to her. Meanwhile my mom was upset because she vaguely remembered what happened and didn't realize how much I was hurt all this time. Once again there was a lot of crying just from me. My sister was able to sleep just fine at night while I was the one having nightmares and signs of ptsd over my mom applying adult standards to me as a child for these actions. I tried forgiving mom too, but I just feel hurt without any anger toward her despite how deeply she hurt me. I don't know how to make the hurt stop though. Being accused of sexually abusing my sister profoundly damaged my self esteem and trying to compensate my self worth through intelligence wasn't enough. I ended up talking more once I was put in a recovery program for mental health. There was group therapy and others were afraid to talk about what happened to them. I told them this story along with two others involving sex trafficking and sexual assault. This made others in the group feel brave enough to discuss how they had similar experiences but never told anybody because obviously they would be judged harshly. Some of them talked about having sexual relations with other children when they were both under aged and how much they hated themselves when they realized how much they hurt the child. Situations like these make you feel like you really are alone and need to suffer in silence. If the perpetrators regret their actions the event can cause them severe trauma too, but society views these people as irredeemable and unlovable. This is why this type of sexual trauma is not very well known or discussed. Most people wouldn't understand, so the secret is taken to the grave. There is a very powerful social stigma around this type of sexual trauma, and needs to be challenged in order to build a more understanding and loving society where people can feel safe to open up about these sorts of things.

@Joshe this kind of issue of sexual acts between siblings is definitely more common then most realize. Most siblings take this secret with them to the grave. The true number is thus not known because of under reporting. I thought for a long time that I was going to keep the a secret forever, but I eventually started talking 18 years later. You make a good point about sexual curiosity. In my case sexual curiosity completely fucked me over on many levels. I was never given proper guidance on this sort thing. The result is that I blamed my sexual curiosity for causing the situation. The result is that I learned to demonize sex and avoid it constantly. This continues to damage my potential in relationships because I see my sexual curiosity as something horrible. I'm afraid that the fact that I'm sexually curious means that I'm being a pig who wants to use women sex. This is why I can't stand it when men turn women into sexual objects and manipulate them, thus reinforcing the stereotype. I probably now over compensate for anything remotely sexual and it creates a ton of barriers to intimacy. I become unable to express things like physical attraction because I'm afraid of crossing an unforgivable boundary. I become really constricted when I stay silent to avoid anything harmful. This is the fundamental reason I'm so afraid of dating and the opposite sex due to the trauma that colors this experience. It was agonizing to watch Leo's series on how to get laid and it felt like getting tortured. There were a ton of other trauma responses. The point is that I don't want other children to suffer like this. Things like these can make you hate yourself to the point that self love literally becomes impossible. I have been trying to love myself my entire life after what happened, and I'm starting to piece together the formula for self love. If I publish this kind of book, then that would be result of my life long struggle to love myself and how I came to peace. Situations like these make it seem like no matter what you do you can never be content with who you are.

I don't know why that posted again. Sorry. @James123 at the moment I'm hesitant to do that. In case I later do, can you tell me how to tell if I'm surrendering?

@bensenbiz I used claude. I made about 100 conversations on different topics. At first I started discussing various subjects and checked myself for misconceptions. It was fun and I eventually uncovered that I believed in racist myths and nazi propaganda. I also asked my questions about sex Ed and discovered concerning gaps in my knowledge. I later started looking at various psychological models for development. I learned about other models aside from spiral dynamics and then started using those to analyze myself. I tried using the conversation to try to get the ai to evaluate me. I don't know how accurate it is though. The models have been useful for helping me evaluate other people and navigate challenging situations. I also use the ai to help me navigate moral dilemmas. Sometimes I practiced different scenarios and had the ai evaluate my reasoning. My most helpful conversations is when I discussed difficult memories and situations. Once I figured out how to get around the triggers for child porn, I was able to use it to help me understand my trauma. I described how different traumatic events affected my behavior. I began to learn about different trauma responses that shaped my shame and that it wasn't grounded in reality. Some of the realizations I had nearly brought me to tears. The ai insists that it isn't a substitute for therapy, but I found it more helpful than actual therapists. At least the ai believed me when I said there were men trying to hire a prostitute to have sex with me while the actual therapist didn't believe me and told me that I would have to deal with people like this. He ended up giving bad advice. It's not fair to assume human therapists make fewer mistakes than ai. I also used the ai to analyze criminal psychology. I ended up developing some interesting theories around power and control. One exercise I did was a parenting exercise. I discussed with the ai how I would raise a child. The ai helped me to recognize how my trauma would be passed to the child. I thought I would be doing a good job raising a child, but actually it would be potentially harmful. I would basically be teaching the survival strategies I learned in a chaotic environment which could cause anxiety in the child. I would become over protective and I would use constant learning in the hopes of protecting the child from harm in any way possible. I would be distrusting of institutions like schools because of the bullying I faced by students and teachers and how I developed ocd around this abuse including when I was sexually assaulted. If I teach too much theory, the child could become mentally rigid. This is exactly what I did to myself. I tried to use learning to protect myself from harm by navigating different dangers while overcoming trauma. I might end up building a child to withstand terrible trauma that never even happens. Testing how you would raise a child is a good psychological exercise. Presently I'm not sure what other insights I should look for through these ai conversations. I considered sending some of my conversations as examples, but they involve a lot of embarrassing information I'm afraid to admit to humans who will judge me.

@bensenbiz I used claude. I made about 100 conversations on different topics. At first I started discussing various subjects and checked myself for misconceptions. It was fun and I eventually uncovered that I believed in racist myths and nazi propaganda. I also asked my questions about sex Ed and discovered concerning gaps in my knowledge. I later started looking at various psychological models for development. I learned about other models aside from spiral dynamics and then started using those to analyze myself. I tried using the conversation to try to get the ai to evaluate me. I don't know how accurate it is though. The models have been useful for helping me evaluate other people and navigate challenging situations. I also use the ai to help me navigate moral dilemmas. Sometimes I practiced different scenarios and had the ai evaluate my reasoning. My most helpful conversations is when I discussed difficult memories and situations. Once I figured out how to get around the triggers for child porn, I was able to use it to help me understand my trauma. I described how different traumatic events affected my behavior. I began to learn about different trauma responses that shaped my shame and that it wasn't grounded in reality. Some of the realizations I had nearly brought me to tears. The ai insists that it isn't a substitute for therapy, but I found it more helpful than actual therapists. At least the ai believed me when I said there were men trying to hire a prostitute to have sex with me while the actual therapist didn't believe me and told me that I would have to deal with people like this. He ended up giving bad advice. It's not fair to assume human therapists make fewer mistakes than ai. I also used the ai to analyze criminal psychology. I ended up developing some interesting theories around power and control. One exercise I did was a parenting exercise. I discussed with the ai how I would raise a child. The ai helped me to recognize how my trauma would be passed to the child. I thought I would be doing a good job raising a child, but actually it would be potentially harmful. I would basically be teaching the survival strategies I learned in a chaotic environment which could cause anxiety in the child. I would become over protective and I would use constant learning in the hopes of protecting the child from harm in any way possible. I would be distrusting of institutions like schools because of the bullying I faced by students and teachers and how I developed ocd around this abuse including when I was sexually assaulted. If I teach too much theory, the child could become mentally rigid. This is exactly what I did to myself. I tried to use learning to protect myself from harm by navigating different dangers while overcoming trauma. I might end up building a child to withstand terrible trauma that never even happens. Testing how you would raise a child is a good psychological exercise. Presently I'm not sure what other insights I should look for through these ai conversations. I considered sending some of my conversations as examples, but they involve a lot of embarrassing information I'm afraid to admit to humans who will judge me.

@Human Mint Actually it might be a combination of many factors at play. For example, I became peaceful after reading about key insights from trauma responses. I have done a lot of research already, so I probably already knew this stuff intellectually. If my mind became more flexible in a new environment, then it could have made my mind more receptive to these insights and trigger the change.

@integral I do feel better. We can say it is possible that the musty smell from mold in my closet by my bed caused it.

@integral actually you make a good point. The idea that it is all in our head is extremely damaging. It is like a country claiming to be a meritocracy insist that you are not successful because you are not good enough. They can invalidate your experience and make you doubt yourself. In the case of it is all in my head, it makes me treat myself like my thinking is the problem. I try the affirmations and gratitude but it does nothing for me.

@integral I would have mentioned the toxins if not for the fact that my other grandma I now live with has cats who shit on the floor and she uses tide for the laundry. I know the other house was really old with the paint and everything. It was musty and had the smell of old people like my great grandparents. There might have also been an evil spirit which I saw during sleep paralysis. There used to be one at my mom's house too. Maybe that's why my family acted that way. I changed the air I'm breathing, but this air isn't ideal either. To solve that problem I will need to eventually get away from the cats and chemicals still. I don't know what concretely is the difference in air I'm breathing in terms of specific bacteria or chemicals though.

I have been using claude. I have had about 100 conversations with it. I generated a lot of valuable insights with it on a wide variety of topics. For example I uncovered several false beliefs about history and sexuality, making it a tool I like for learning. I would say my greatest insights came from discussing traumatic events and how they affected my mind, thought patterns, behavior, and awareness. Each time I learned about different trauma responses, my mind became a little more free and more peaceful. I also did a lot of psychological analysis of myself and across different types of people. I had some nice breakthroughs in criminal psychology and it's relationship to attachment to control and power. I found many ways in which this attachment can manifest. My most life transforming discoveries revolve around understanding childhood trauma, and nearly all of it goes back to the messed up incident from when I was six. First of all, feeling dirty and tainted is a trauma response and not an objective reflection of reality. Secondly, forcing myself to confront painful thoughts is a trauma response which becomes a form of self punishment without resolving the pain. Thirdly, constant self monitoring and analysis is itself a trauma response which feeds into anxiety, ocd, and guilt. Fourthly, acting on intrusive thoughts is an ineffective ocd coping response. And there were other trauma responses that shaped the identity I built up. Honestly, I found the ai more helpful than my actual therapists. My mind hasn't felt this peaceful since before the incident 20 years ago. Now my relationship with my mind, thoughts, and awareness has changed and it makes me wonder what will I discover about myself and what brings me joy in life if my process isn't skewed like it was before. What breakthroughs did you have with ai conversations?

@Buck Edwards what kind of therapy do you need? Is your family a significant stressor? Would you like to discuss these things in private chat?

I just no longer care about incest and have no particularly strong opinions on it. I have no need to defend such positions. I don't have anything to gain from debating these things.

@Scholar I want to let you know that I used to be invested in this issue. It happened because I actually had a sexual interaction with my sister and sometimes I would have sexual fantasies about them. This act between my sister and I happened when I was six and my mother started treating me like I molested her four year old daughter probably because of statutory rape from my father. I had a lot of guilt and shame that scarred me for nearly my entire life. I have found ways to eventually heal from most of the trauma. Before my recovery, I would make stories about why incest was okay, siting different cultures. What I am getting at is that if you are really this invested in incest, then there is a high likelihood that you either had a sexual experience with a sibling or you have fantasies about it. I stopped being invested in this issue once I practiced forgiveness for the child I was. If you had any experiences like these, then it is important to discuss them so you can get proper help. I have met people with similar experience or people who sexually abused other children when they were young only to end up with intense shame which they could never talk about to anybody. If you are building stories around this, then it shows you probably have a strong reason to be invested in this. Why are so interested in incest? Here is my other forum post. After deep self reflection, it triggered a deep transformation in myself.

I considered racist beliefs like those before in the fifth grade. I was being bullied by a group of black kids for being white and gay. I thought about those racist ideas for about 12 seconds and decided that everybody gets one chance. I later found out that apparently members of the ku klux klan believe this too. This perplexes me because it might be a surface cover for racism meaning I haven't fully undone my deeper initial judgement baser on bad experience. At the end of the day adopting these kinds of prejudices will only worsen your pain. These toxic believes will make these groups hate you more. Even if you tried being racist for a day you would probably notice that it doesn't actually help you. You would probably make enemies and it would worsen your peace of mind. Good luck

I've been noticing some of the apparent contradictions between what Leo said in past videos and what he says now. For example, when he talked about everybody acting with good intentions he later suggested that they are literally good. This also included open-mindedness exercises like the possibility that evil doesn't exist and is a pure fabrication of the mind. Meanwhile he later started talking about insights like I'm not good, I'm evil. He even made posts on this forum about how it is foolish to think everybody is inherently good. This can leave you prone to exploitation. Perhaps this is why stage green is frequently exploited by red by targeting their assumptions of good intent. From one point of view evil does not exist, from one point of view everybody is good, from one point of view evil does exist, from one point of view it is asinine to think everybody is good. The reason Leo stresses so much that actualized shouldn't be held as a belief system or ideology is because what he teaches is true, but from a certain point of view. Depending on the point of view, a lot of contradictory stances could be true. When he speaks, those are relative truths unless he is delusional. I discussed this site with an ai and the ai thinks he is insane and sounds like a narcissist claiming absolute truth. Leo took some tests to claim otherwise. This is why it would be a nightmare if one day Leo was gone and forums like these turned into an actual cult with people furiously debating what Leo said. I think it would be wise of Leo to one day get rid of the forum seeing how the spiritual community could ultimately devolve into dogma. I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from these teachings if various conclusions are true from a certain point of view.

@Leo Gura good job improving at chess. Have you considered playing games against yourself? I had some really cool games that way. I keep getting draws because my opponent is an equally powerful human who knows exactly what I'm thinking. While doing this you can map out exactly how you think and then look for improvements in how you calculate and plan.

I called Leo's blog post yesterday. This is awesome. I figured it out before the post.

I totally called it! Leo just made a blog post about this exact subject.

When I originally came to this forum, I held myself to a certain standard. I tried to at least pretend to be a high conscious individual. I tried emphasizing the values and mimicking the thought process of what I believed a high conscious individual would embody. Sometimes I failed and it was embarrassing. Somewhere along the line, I decided to show the forum my true colors. I felt that I wasn't being authentic enough due to the identity I created around the appearance of being intellectually or spiritually advanced. I pushed myself to discuss things that actually bothered me and seemed to be the obstacles in my life. I began discussing deeper emotional issues that I hadn't yet overcome along with the abusive situation with my family which led to suicidal thoughts. Something felt off about sharing this kind of personal information. Something was uncomfortable about it, but I can't put my finger on it. This pattern continued in real life when I would share things that made me uncomfortable discussing. I reasoned that there might be someone else suffering in this way. Eventually, I did find people who finally felt able to speak about their deep trauma without fear of judgement. On some level I viewed it as a sacrifice for a good cause. Perhaps the problem was that I didn't know how to discuss who I was as a human being without tying it to trauma and how it impacted me. For example, I could tell you that I am interested in high intelligence and developing an advanced mind. This is why I study things like psychology, philosophy, emotional mastery, among other topics. However, the attachment to seeming intelligent stemmed from a crippled sense of self worth due to trauma. I didn't always hold those interests. This makes me wonder what child was lost along the line. Similarly, I didn't always have such extreme phobia of dating and the opposite sex. This disposition was also a consequence of trauma which seemed to define my worldview in a profound way. What if I remained open and more extroverted rather than shutting down? These are both examples of how I have a hard time showing who I am as a human being without accounting for the profound impact trauma had on my self image. It looks like online forums became a tool for discussing these things without being threatened because I won't meet these people in real life. I discuss all kinds of things on this forum that I didn't share in real life. I think my behavior of over sharing began with my school projects. I discussed things like domestic violence and drug addiction. I did that because I was hoping to get help somehow even if meant I would be punished. Perhaps my over sharing is a continuation of this learned childhood pattern. I was otherwise very quiet and silently depressed. What are your thoughts on this behavior? I think I should trust my instincts and share less personal information in my interactions with others. I even did practice dating where I ended up sharing how I was hurt by anti depressants. Apparently that was too much.

I want to tell my story to see if someone can learn from it. I have found some useful insights along the way for people with this kind of behavior. When I was young, I originally had no interest in porn. I didn't understand the purpose of looking at it or what it was supposed to do. My grandpa looked at porn and he was caught on multiple occasions because of the search history. My sisters, mother, and grandma freaked out while I just ignored it. In fact I had developed a purity complex due to trauma. I learned to disown sexual pursuits as something of lower purpose and value. The values I imposed on myself were for me to justify my existence through achievement and leaving a legacy. For some time it seemed my integrity had become unbreakable because I had no desire to engage in the inappropriate sexual behaviors of other kids. This purity complex started to fall apart when I hit puberty. I would have more sexual fantasies and started masturbating. I felt some level of guilt and feared being caught. Nevertheless the pleasure was too great for me to resist even with my trauma. At this time I still didn't understand the function of looking at porn. One day, I was watching a show about police. In this episode there was a sexual predator who took trophies from his victims. He would take their hair and panties. He would also take pictures of them tied up and looking scared or while naked. As I watched the show I dismissed this behavior as just weird and wasn't interested in understanding it. However in the next scene a police officer started explaining the behavior. The police officer said that having trophies and pictures of his victims enhanced his sexual pleasure during masturbation. This line stuck out to me. I never was interested in porn, but now I started thinking that if I look at pictures of naked ladies while masturbating, it would enhance my sexual pleasure. I decided that I wanted to try it. The officer inadvertently encouraged this behavior. I started looking at porn and I discovered that the police officer was right. I felt more pleasure while looking at pictures compared to just using my imagination. However, I quickly discovered that I was leaving a trail of evidence behind in the search history. This is how grandpa was caught. I went through the history to delete the evidence while keeping the innocent pages. Deleting the entire history like grandpa did would be suspicious so I needed to learn from his mistakes. This is when I stopped looking at porn for fear of getting caught. For several years I didn't look at porn. However, I one day discovered incognito mode when I was just messing around with internet settings. When I read about incognito mode my brain immediately became interested in looking at porn again. The description was basically an invitation to look at naked ladies. I don't remember how old I was when I started looking at porn again. I looked at a lot of different kinds of porn. I noticed I had a fetish for situations involving an imbalance of power and control. I therefore gravitated toward situations with a group of men having sex with a single woman. It feels embarrassing to admit this, but I prefer to own up to these kind of things. Once I got out of college I decided to pursue self education as I searched for my life purpose. My self education included researching various political issues. I thought through all of my positions carefully trying to be as objective as possible while setting aside my emotions and biases. I used politics as way to self reflect on how selfishness can manifest while trying to commit myself to being as unbiased as possible. One day I started learning about sex trafficking and its relationship to porn. Human traffickers were forcing women and children into prostitution for money and sites like pornhub among others were not doing enough to stop the illegal porn because of the amount of content. Therefore people looking at porn were potentially financially supporting and aiding in human trafficking. Despite being aware of human traffickers, I continued to look at porn anyway. However, I was different from most people looking at porn. I would carefully observe myself and commit to radical self honesty by admitting that I was prioritizing my own sexual pleasure over the victims of human trafficking. I looked at forums debating porn and noticed that most porn addicts were incapable of this level of self reflection. I showed an unusual level of honesty and self reflection by admitting that my behavior reflected negatively on my moral character. Meanwhile people who look at porn a ridiculous amount like multiple times everyday would make really stupid arguments to defend themselves. I was looking at porn about once a week. As I continued to learn about sex trafficking, I increasingly doubted the content I was looking at. I noticed there was teen porn in which the girl looked too young for comfort. I also looked at those gang situations with multiple men and started wondering if that woman was actually being coerced. I realized that I was unable to tell if the porn depicted a legal situation or not. I therefore couldn't tell if I was helping human traffickers or not. Overtime my guilt pushed me to force myself to stop looking at porn. However the temptation to look for sexual pleasure was still there. I had conflicted feelings about this. I haven't looked at porn in about 9 months. I continued my self reflection process through Journaling and observing myself. I recently recognized the flaw in my behavior. I was using the suffering of others to attack my own feelings with guilt. This is a form of emotional self harm and self sabotage. I made this connection through all of my previous studies in psychology and emotional mastery. I realized that so long as I was operating under guilt I could not function optimally. I was still thinking about sex constantly throughout the day, especially in terms of pleasure. It was feeding into the continued temptation to look at porn even though I didn't actually look. I started observing my guilt and shame recognizing I need to let it go. As I let go my mind became quieter. I knew the outcome could be that I go back to looking at porn, but I surrendered to that possibility as well as the alternative that I don't. I paradoxically discovered that letting go of my guilt and shame allowed me to let go of temptation. This is one of the paradoxes of psychology when guilt can reinforce unwanted patterns rather than remove them. It leads to a cycle of distress and relief. It can be like guilting yourself over eating junk food or any other habit. In my case the guilt caused my mind to fixate on sex even more. It reinforced Patterns of shame like my ocd around sexually assaulting people randomly. My mind now feels more peaceful and clear. All of the other self reflection I did makes me feel more capable of loving myself. I am continuing to let go of guilt and shame which is a habit that got drilled into me as a child due to trauma. I hope someone out there learns from my story. What do you think?

@Something Funny if you meant my personal life, then i can give you a real life example. During spring break I traveled to Europe with my sister. We were in London watching street performers. I had done my research, so I was aware that pick pockets targeted tourists who were watching street performers. A couple walked up behind me and my sister. I looked at their faces. They had unnatural smiles. Their eyes were unnaturally fixated on the performers as they avoided any eye contact with me. Their body was stiff and the smiles exaggerated. This is when I felt something was wrong. They positioned themselves such that I had nowhere to run because I was caught between the crowd and them. I couldn't move and now was vulnerable. I pretended to watch the street performers and the loud music. I was silent and listened carefully for any movement behind me. As the song approached the climax with loud noise and excitement, I heard the zipper of my backpack coming undone and felt the vibration through my body. I was bullied a lot in school, so I was sensitive to people trying to steal from me. I immediately took off my backpack saying "I heard that." I placed the backpack between my sister and myself and checked. I found the zipper was opened. I turned around and looked at the couple. They maintained their unnatural smiles even though they were just caught. They pretended nothing happened and walked away. So to answer your question, When somebody seems suspicious, I become extra alert around them and pay close attention for sudden movements even when I seem to have my guard down.

I'll be honest, I mainly identify with yellow even though other people on this forum would think I'm nuts. I tried taking online tests and evaluations for this and I consistently got yellow. I tried describing myself to an AI. I don't know how trustworthy it is, but it also said yellow. Maybe the truth is that I don't really fit cleanly into any category. I might have some qualities of blue, some orange, some green, and some yellow. I view it like 35% yellow, 15% blue, 30% green, 20% orange. Maybe it is some kind of combination like this. Maybe it's actually 20% yellow and 35% orange if you think I mixed things up. But if trump is stage yellow, then I'm stage white super mind.